I keep forgetting I really am as sensitive as I claim. I just sat for a few moments at someone else’s computer to help them with something and I hurt.
The monitor is set with the window behind it and it has a wide black frame around the screen. The buildings through the window are brighter than the screen and way brighter than the 2″ black frame so there is a much more than 5 to 1 contrast ratio. Also the refresh rate is set around 60Hz, which means I can see the screen flicker.
From just the short time I was there (less than 5 mins) my eyes hurt, my head hurts and I can feel the tension going down the side of my neck. Little pains but noticeable. I am so grateful I don’t have to sit at that machine like that normally. If it was my work area, the window screens would be down lowering the light and the refresh rate would be raised. Even where I am now, I don’t have the room lights on whereas my co-worker on the other side of the room has his. I just get a headache from the light overhead. At a guess I would say my screen to background brightness ratio is around or under 2 to 1.
At least I can tell why I hurt. I don’t know how most people can stand the flicker rate at 60Hz and the other things they put up with.
I am sorry you are hurting!!
When you feel better –
What’s a refresh rate?
Sparrow
On a WinXP system:
Right-click on the desktop; select “Properties.”
Click the “Settings” tab.
Click “Advanced.”
Click the “Monitor” tab.
Screen refresh rate is somewhere in there. Default is 60 for most monitors; older ones
need to be smashed with big hammerscan’t safely be set higher than that. 75 is tolerable, and a bit more than tolerable on a flat screen. 85 is good.60 is painful. The flicker bothers me all day. From across the room. I’ve been known to sneak around offices re-setting the refresh rate on every computer I can get to.
thank you. I just reset mine to 85. I cannot consciously see the flicker at 60, but I am going to see it this changes anything in my headaches and neck pains.
Could be interesting.
Sparrow
okay, that was bad. I apparently have weird eyes. 60 doesn’t bother me at all. 85 hurt like I was being stabbed with fire in my eyes. I have reset to 60.
*whimpers*
Sparrow
Is this a CRT-specific thing? ‘Cause on my LCD monitor I can’t see the refresh. I can see LED taillights flicker, I can see flourescent lights flicker, I can see DLP televisions go through their R-G-B cycle… but I don’t see anything weird going on with my screen and it’s set to 60hz. I set it to 75Hz and it kinda felt buzzy but that may have been my imagination as it didn’t look different.
It’s a CRT thing, as I recall. My work monitor’s set at 75, looks like, which is why a white background isn’t painful to look at.
It’s worse, though, on a start up screen, because for whatever reason the refresh is low and the image is low resolution as well, and it’s flicker city.
I know my sensitivity to this sort of thing goes up when I’m sick, though. Most of the time, it’s just a tiresome nuisance. Then again, I’ve got a flatscreen at home so I don’t have that problem.
I had to do it to my LCD screen as well. I think the CRT makes it more noticible.
Mostly it is a corner of my eye thing. Or if I stand at a distance. It keeps making me what to strain to see “something” and that is what ends up hurting me I think. Staring straight at it is hard to see.
60Hz? *whimper*